Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Honeydew melon juice this morning. Oh how good. After all water yesterday, this tasted divine. I am not sure if I am a bit allergic though. I was drinking it, and after a bit, it was like my tongue was numb. It was all very odd. I was fine when I finished it though, so it may have been a sudden weird happening that was a detox symptom.

FYI - if you are to juice a melon, don't muck it up with other fruits. Everything I have read says that melons are digested in a flash, so they tend to want to move everything else in your system along - unless they are behind complex things and get stuck and putrefy in your guts - not good.

Otherwise my day is shaping up well. I slept well last night, despite very odd dreams, and I have some crazy dreams usually. Now on juice and no solids, my dreams are more vivid and last long. The dream: Somehow my nephew (who turned 15 today) was over my house and took my car to go deliver something across state lines. He doesn't know how to drive, but we let him go anyway. Then his mother kept calling wondering when we would bring him home. We kept making excuses about the fun we were all having because we still had yet to hear from him. He never called. Then, after a day, we got worried (I know, a whole day) and we went looking for him. Turns out he got picked up by the cops a few miles away because he didn't know the rules of the road and ran a stop sign. He wasn't being kept in a jail, but in some sort of decrepit building and the cops were shady and I am not sure what was happening, but he was someplace in there and we had to break him out. Then the alarm work me up and I will never know WTF that was about.

Lunch (who am I kidding, I have yet to touch it and it is after 2:30pm), is a very green Cucumber, Parsley, Dill, Fennel, Celery juice. It is weird because there are floaty bits in it. Very odd indeed. First sip - very, um, no taste? I think maybe these missing taste buds are making things taste funny. It is all very fresh tasting, but light. I like it. I think this combo is a keeper. Having a cucumber celery base is good for green drinks. Not sure why so many floaty bits. Maybe the screen was clogged?

Let me know what you think about my blog if anyone out there is reading this. I would appreciate the feedback. Do you like the inclusion of photos and links? What should I do more of? What questions do you have that I can answer? Help! I need more to write about than feeling so self absorbed lately!

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

To combat the icky mouth, I decided today would be a water day. I was going to do a green juice, but I felt pretty good all day on just water and a cup of tea, so I said to hell with juice. I will get back to it tomorrow. So it was water with lime, Yogi brand Healthy Fasting tea with orange for lunch, and water with lemon and lime later. I didn't have any bags so I took the half orange and half lemon and put them cut side to cut side and rubber banded them together and left them on my desk. My boss comes by and starts laughing at them, asking if I was attempting some kind of cross-citrus breeding program. It was funny, you had to be there I guess.

How am I feeling?

I have gotten this question a lot since I started, and upon reflection today, I can say this is not half as bad as I thought it would be. Today I have the budding of an idea: There is a difference between hunger, craving, temptation, and Hunger. I have not gotten to the point only after 8 days where I am some yogi guru on juice fasting, but this is the thinking juice fast blog, and here I am thinking on "paper." So here goes:

hunger - small "h", is something you feel when you miss a meal, or when your brain is working in conjunction with your stomach, listening for even the smallest rumble as a sign that you need more food now. You maybe missed lunch and your stomach protests and you want a good dinner to compensate. That hunger ain't shit. Now, I did not really know that in my bones before. I think I always told myself I needed 3 square meals, the food pyramid, all my servings of fruits and veggies yaddayaddayadda, surely a product of years of hearing about all that stuff from the government and the industrial farming industry. Think about it, the dairy farmers and their happy cows want us to eat cheese and other dairy products, the sugar industry wants us to believe that "real sugar" is the best sugar, beef producers want us to eat certified Angus beef, and what I think the biggest joke of late is the corn producers telling us that high fructose corn syrup in that gallon jug of Brand X fruit drink is good for us. Whatever!

cravings - I am not sure if it is mostly a bi-product of commercials/marketing, smelling food and the sensory memory attached to those smells, or a some emotional fall back, but in 8 days I have learned a bit more about what cravings really are in my body. When you are taking hunger out of the equation, meaning you ignore the angry stomach and the grumbles of your digestive track, you mind starts going through its store of triggers to try to get you to eat. It says "well, that direct approach of logic didn't work, let's go 'round and be a bit sneeky." When you catch yourself it is kind of funny, I imagine shaking a finger at my own mind.

Temptaion - another beast for me. When something looks/smells/sounds/feels (you see the sensory pattern here) like it will be really good, I could want it, even without an audible hunger sound. My stomach may be quiet and just chilling, thinking it lost its battle for now and is almost complacent, but the mind won't give up. It is really juvinile really. This weekend the sight of the Wonder bread and the softness of the package made me want it. I would never want Wonder bread on a usual day. But the mind flashes images of childhood and the security of mom, and tempts you into having some.

Hunger - capital H. This Hunger is more forceful and real, it seems. After a few days, my stomach stopped rumbling, my mind gave up its onslaught of tricks, and I was very still. Then every now and again I would feel Hunger in my whole gut, like the organ itself was shrinking in its emptiness. I had water. If the Hunger came back soon after, I had juice. Then the Hunger quieted down and all was good. Now, for the first time in a long time, it felt like I was listening to my body, really listening. Hunger for real is what starving people have, and they try to fill their bellies with water or mud cakes. For me, Hunger in this form is mild because I have food, or juice as it were. I know when my next meal is and the pain of true Hunger is absent.

All during these points I can say that it is the strength of will power, that same strength I said I didn't have all these years, it is that seed of sheer will that got me though. In 8 days I have fostered that will into being able to have only water for a whole day and not have that big Hunger. Wow. It feels great. I have to say I feel good. My energy has been bolstered.

I am going to finish this night with a bit of coconut water while I watch LOST, in comradery for those islanders. LOL. ;)

Monday, March 29, 2010

Went 3 blocks down the street to The City Lounge(? I honestly have never been in there) to attend that memorial reunion Monday night drink with old friends and it was like walking into my life 12 years ago. It was the summer after high school, I was 18 and fancy free and heard about a bar-tending opportunity, and I thought - hey, how cool would it be to be a bartender and work at a bar, while the rest of my friends were working in the mall? Sure, it was Medieval Times, but I could dig the Renaissance wear and costumes, at least I didn't have to decide what I was going to wear to work. I started and spent almost 2 years working the show, mixing drinks, cocktail wenching, and hanging out with a varied and rowdy crowd. We went to bars, BBQs, camping, all over. It was bittersweet to leave, but I had met my now husband (a great story to tell later), and my asthma got to the point where it was my lungs or the show (you could still smoke at bars back then and I paid for it).

Flash forward a year and a half: I am very allergic to horses (turns out that had something to do with the breathing), met some great people, and I said goodbye to the castle. Some of those friends have endured through the years, many not. It was really weird walking into a room of almost strangers, that were once a bastard family, with vague memories that were perhaps best left in the past. I am glad I reconnected with a handful of people who remembered me, and I was glad to show up for a really cool dude who happened to pass on way too soon.

The part about going to a bar and making a concentrated effort to not drink, even though part of you is uncomfortable with seeing all these people who knewyouwhen (when you were younger and thinner), is that you don't have the social lubrication of a beer or shot to give your hands something to do. It ain't happening. But I entered, sure in who I am now, and made my way. Drinking my bottle of water was something to do, but after a while, I realized that these people may have knew me when, but in many ways, if they only knew me now and saw how much cooler, wiser, and confident I am today. Yeah world, this is me, love it or shove it.

I still managed to down 3 bottles of H2O, but resisted the urge to even do a shot. I do hope we all get the chance to get together sometime again, under happier circumstances. I also realized that, in many ways, so many people look/act exactly the same as they did then, and I am not sure if that is a good thing, or a bad one. It struck me as funny that I kept picturing the old costumes on many of these people because I only ever saw them at work. Seeing them in their normal clothes was weird. I guess my memories of the castle from way back when have replayed in my mind with these perpetually costumed serfs and wenches. So much of this time was out of my memories and it was really good remembering some of the crazy times. FYI - all the people that I ever worked with at Medieval Times, and probably still work there, are about as wild a group of people as you get. When they are after hours and out of the castle, they know how to have a good time, and are a chosen family.

On to the juice and other things...

I had the leftovers from last night for lunch. It was alright, but I am off the beets for a few days. My stomach can not handle the beets 2 days in a row. For dinner I juiced some dill, curly parsley, cucumber, and parsnip. Taste, bland, but good. I should have added garlic or maybe more dill. I also have developed a case of oral thrush. I know, ewww TMI. Well, maybe not because I hear that part of the detox is getting nasties like candida out of your system is part of the process. I developed this first as a child, relapsing when I was taking a too-powerful antibiotic in my teens and again in my 20s. It is a yeast that feeds on sugars, and I think the fruit juice may be too much for me, may have to do more veggies. Tomorrow I am fasting on water mostly, maybe juice in the afternoon or evening. Starve them out. It is fairly common, and only looks like my taste buds are patchy. No real worries and I don't have the cooties, (though I hear fasting is a good way to get rid of the cooties). It is kind of ironic really, after I spent the better part of Sunday disinfecting my produce only to have a nasty from my own body attack me!

Monday mornings are bittersweet. I hate getting out of bed to put my work clothes on, but I love that I have a job and a car and a house and all those other things that working brings. So I go to work with this in mind, and my job is not really bad at all. It is frustrating, at times, but no more so than anyone elses' jobs I guess. I miss teaching today, as I do sometimes, yet the mid-term paper crunch and overworked feeling I used to have is not worth missing really. I guess this is what I am reflecting on with my apple-pear-lime morning juice--the bittersweet.

Speaking of which, I am going to a memorial bar get-together tonight to remember a friend from long ago in my Medieval Times days. It will be that same mix of feelings as I get to see many of the ghosts from my past. I remember many a night at Rigley's Field with Futch and friends. Hope no one takes offense at my not having a shot with everyone.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

I love lazy Sundays, when there is nothing more to do than relax. Too bad that is never the way it works out. I guess some cleaning, laundry, food shopping and a trip to the Farmers Market is mild compared to work work, but it would have been nice to just chill in the house. All and all it was nice keeping busy.

We went to the Farmers Market on Rt 17 in East Rutherford. It was a zoo. I paid about $43 dollars for a cart of produce and have enough for the whole week or more - and I juice a lot of stuff. I would have paid triple at Stop & Shop or even more if I went to Whole Foods and did organic, like I did for a few items last week, which was totally expensive, small, and out of my way. So what is a girl to do when organic is not in her budget? Buy cheap, try to stay with stuff grown in the US, and wash, wash, wash. I took on the task of disinfecting all the produce as it came into the house. Really. It is important to make sure everything, even the peels on the citrus, is clean. You never know what touches the fruits and veggies you eat.

This issue is complicated when you think of how stuff comes into the country. I am not an expert on the what kinds of pesticides and fertilizer or *shudder* genetic altercations are in play in the stuff we import off season, but I hazard to think the FDA may not know the ins and outs of the stuff we get for good prices. I do not know what parisites or bacteria (since I am eating raw juice) may be on the produce, nor what may have been on the person's hands who picked, packed, shipped, or stocked the stuff I buy. Heat may kill some, but think of this - even when you cut a melon, your knife and your hands are touching the rind that came off the ground (full of manure) and made its way to the store where it was touched, thumped, and shaken for freshness by who knows how many hands. It is enough to want to stick to packaged goods (save for the frightening amounts of nasty stuff in processed foods).

I first bleached my sink and cleaned it really OCD well, then filled my (for lack of a better description) 1 and 1/2 kitchen sink with with cold water + vinegar + baking soda in the big part and the smaller side with plain cold water. I then dumped bag after bag of produce in the sink and let it soak for 10 minutes, then scrubbed each piece and put it in fresh water. It was a long task, and I changed the acid bath water 3 times or more and the clean water after every type of produce item (i.e., after the apples, after the carrots, etc) because it was really that nasty. I shudder to think of all the times I ate apples without washing them, especially when a sink full of apples and pears was tinted brown with little floaty bits of god knows what in it. *Ew*

Ok, so I spent like 2 hours or more washing veggies and fruit for the week. It was worth it. I removed those annoying labels and made sure the drawers in the fridge were sanitized. Then put everything dry into the fridge minus the bags. Now I have everything ready to make quick juice in the morning before work. I hope the time I spent, and care I spent, keeps me from getting sick or having to get up way too early.

Hunger pains are almost gone. When I get a rumble, I drink and it goes away. This morning, apple with a half of a lemon. For lunch, zucchini and carrot which was alright as far as veggie juice goes. Dinner came out of The Juicing Bible: Tomato, Red Pepper, Radish, Beet, Cayenne Pepper. I added some garlic just for kick. It was really good, and will be lunch tomorrow as I made too much. Tomatoes juice better when they are ripe and cold it seems, because I got a ton of juice. I am drinking less these past few days. I am not finishing every bit i make because I don't need to I guess. My body says it has enough and that is it.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

In celebration of my nephews 15th birthday, we got together for some family food and fun. It was a very nice time. My sister-in-law is a great cook, really goes all out. The smells were amazing, and I am sure the food was as great. I made it through, nothing but my juice past my lips...oh, and some tea, but not the delicious looking sausage and peppers, grilled London broil, salads, hot dogs and burgers, not even the awesome ice cream cake or Caravel ice cream cookie sandwiches. There will be time for all that later in the year.

Everyone had questions about the fast, as expected, and people didn't want to eat in front of me at first, to be nice. I appreciated that, but it is really not necessary. I am ok. I am not dying of hunger or malnutrition. I will eat juice, strangely enough.

I had a facial, and my skin is red and needs rest. I had a pimple on the bridge of my nose yesterday, but it went away. Today, she killed my skin. Nothing like going to a party after not eating for days and looking like cheese grater was taken to your face. Ugh.

Today my drinks were alright. The Apple Pineapple for breakfast was good as expected. Then I drank Cabbage-Carrot-Celery for lunch and it was less cabbagy than I expected. It did not smell great at first, but the pound of carrots to half a head of cabbage was okay. I think I like ginger and carrot more, but the sweet carrots are sometimes too much in general. For dinner I had Broccoli-Cucumber-Spinach-Celery, or Popeye's Revenge as I will forever reference it. It had a no-taste taste. I think I killed my taste buds tonight with the cabbage, or I was deadened by all the food around me, but I did not enjoy it as much as I could have.

On a side note, I have pain in my right jaw or temple, but something is off. It really hurts. I thought that I would have sore legs from pilates yesterday, but no, a sore face and jaw. WTF? You would think after not chewing for days my jaw would itch to chew. Huh. Wonder what is up with that.

We are living in a time when teenagers and adults think that they can text on their cell, drive, drink coffee and eat lunch all at the same time--paying little attention to any one task and more on conducting the "autopilot orchestra." We try to do all those things that take little thought all at the same time, while not really giving any thought to any of them.

How may times have you read a text while driving? Changed your iPod? Ate in the car while driving, while watching a movie/tv, or while not really noticing what you were eating? Ding Ding Ding ---> this girl over here has, and I bet many people have.

For me, right now, I am beginning to realize how often I have been on autopilot. It is scary the number of times I realize I do not remember aspects of my drive home from work. Sometimes I make it from 171 on the Garden State Parkway to 153 and the middle is a big blur. I am losing moments of time in my life, not that the drive is super significant, but it makes me realize that time adds up. I am not spending time in the present but always thinking of the destination.

Maybe the driving example is overworked. I know we are capable of doing many things at once, but when we want to do something really well, it takes focus.

Writing has always been my thinking on "paper"; me trying to get focus. I am out of practice. This blog and this fast are helping my body focus on one thing - getting back to better health. I think other people may need that focus again.

Writing this blog is spending some focused time in the present. This is why 60 days, or 100 days, is not as daunting. I know that time passes, there is nothing any of us can do to slow it, and before I know it, the weeks will pass. That is the great and frightening thing: Time continues to move without human involvement and the only thing we can do ismakeourtimematter.

I even know healthy people that need that focus again in some aspect of their lives. How many vegans and vegetarians fall back on processed or fried foods because they are quick? Tempura Veggies are not health food people. How many people eat uber-healthy and are emotional/financial/mental piles of chaos? Think. Stop. Breathe. Focus.

Perhaps this fast, this reclamation of focus and single-task doing, is my way into the Present.

When I laid down last night (around 1am), I realized that I have been talking about the challenges and the struggle of this fast for 4 days. I have not talked about the good stuff. This morning, before I get out of bed to make morning juice (maybe apple-pineapple-blackberry), I want to share the positives.

1. Switching focus off temptation and craving - now I know that I have written extensively about temptation and craving, and how both have been there for me these past days, but where I used to look and look at something to decide if it is worth eating/tasting/just smelling, I don't do that at all now. I switch gears and do something else. Yesterday it was beginners pilates. At work, it is cleaning out my mailboxes.

2. General knowledge of health - I don't know at this point if it is the avoidance of dairy, meat, or wheat, but I know I feel better. Aside from the tree allergies kicking in, I feel good. I know that I have not been getting the fresh veggies in mass amounts in a long time. I know they are good for me, but many times they are just salad or cooked, but never my only food, and I know the lettuce and tomato on a sandwich or burger does not count toward raw veggies. Now, I am confident I am getting vitamins and minerals without taking them in pill form.

3. Confidence - Every day, every hour really, that I stick-to, my self confidence increases. Now, I have done a 9 day fast before, though it was chemical and you ate salad once a day on the 5 days in the middle, and could have 2 almonds to chew on during fasting days. I stuck to it and it was hard, but I never felt like it did anything for my esteem. Right now, I feel good more than I feel hungry.

4. Weight Release - This is the part where I talk about where I started at and how much weight I lost so far, but instead of focusing on that, I will instead say that I have seen the scale decrease. I have lost about 12 pounds, though how much was water and how much was fat, I don't care. It feels like some sort of crash diet, but it is not. I don't really feel I am denying myself; I am just on a fast for a set number of days, and my only decisions about what to eat (some of the worst decisions as I never could decide) is not so hard: what veggies are going in the juicer?

5. Reflection - I have had more time these past weeks to really focus on changing habits and the journalism questions about my relationship with food and my body. The Who/What/Where/When/Why/How of it all, that I keep in my moleskin journal, apart from this blog, has given me a project and a focus. We often try to do everything at once. We are living in the multitasking generation. But this brings me to my next post.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Today I only had two juices: Pineapple orange in the morning and apple-beet in the afternoon. I was going to make something for dinner, something involving cabbage, but I couldn't bring myself to get up and do it. Something just seems wrong about juicing cabbage. Bad move on my part. I had water and hunger all evening, to the point of walking past the fridge, fresh food I purchased last night and yelling at it. NO I DO NOT WANT TO MAKE A PB&J! Then when I finialy wanted my dinner juice, it was too late. And now I am up writing at almost midnight, and could have had that late dinner juice, but instead I will go hungry. Not good.

So I adjourned upstairs, where there is no food. It is not that I usually have this hard of a time with temptation, it is the mind games, man. I am better now, but whoa! I felt the challenge tonight, for sure. Now, writing, I can reflect, tell myself that it was only because I was an idiot and didn't have dinner. I am juice fasting, not starving myself. Sheesh!

Speaking of which, I watched this independent film tonight called Disfigured, it was about these two women, one very fat, one a recovering (or not) anorexic. For the sake of this blog I will refer to them as the thick one and the thin one. The thin one wanted to join this "Fat Acceptance" group that the thick one belonged to, and all the other women looked at the thin one like she was out of her mind, making fun of them just by her wanting to join because she saw herself as "fat". It was interesting because the thick one eventually became friends with the thin one, in a really messed up set of friendship attempts, they bonded over the way people always obsess about their eating (or lack of) habits. I rated it 3 out of 5, but that was because it was a bit twisted at times.

Oh, and by the way...beets turn lots of stuff red...don't be alarmed if you start fasting and lots of stuff is red...

Thursday, March 25, 2010

I had to go grocery shopping after work, and boy was it a challenge. The last time I went shopping, really most times, my husband was/is with me. So, that very last time I entered a food store, we were doing the produce run for my juice. This time, alone, after 3 days of not eating solid food, it was tough. Headphones playing an audio book that was mildly entertaining, I went in. Wandering the aisles, looking for the deals and temptations was our usual M.O., but I knew I would not fair well with the usual. "They" say everything you need is in the outside aisles of the store, and for the most part, this is correct. Dairy, Meats, Deli, Bakery, Produce = your FDA food groups. For me, focusing on the produce section for now, I am usually fine, if not annoyed at the double cost and smaller size of organics. Tonight, I had to venture further, for the sake of my dear supportive, meat-and-potatoes husband.

I love fresh, thin cut deli meat and cheese on a sandwich, and of all things, I had to get some tonight for him. The smells were enticing, but it was the hunger talking as I went shopping without having my "dinner" and was about 2 hours overdue. The part of my brain that thinks of food is irrational and rational. I know rationally, I should be hungry since I have not eaten anything substantial in 3 days, but I can also rationalize that I am making changes in my habits and on a different path for now. The irrational side is the nagging desire for of massive amounts of that food in my mouth. That irrationality only lasts a few seconds, and in my right mind I have never been a binger or over-eater. I am usually a picker. A buffet was always my favorite as I like to try all kinds of stuff rather than have one big something. So when I come acorss the irrational thought, the breathing and refocusing helps.

All day I was not hungry at all. I have not had hunger pains at work, only mild moments (since my office is literally in the same building as the cafeteria and cooking smells permeate the air all morning and into the afternoon). But the market is designed to make you want to buy food, a lot of food. They make it look pretty, my friends who used to work at the Grand Union used to tell of fixing the displays and rotating stock, not to mention the merchandising. So, with headphones on, to block out the awful Muzak, I got in and out, replenishing my veggies and fruit while I got him his lunch meat and Wonder bread.

I am happy though. Tonight I made a pretty interesting discovery -- tomatoes don't really juice. I got very little juice, and it was pink. I made tomato, fennel, garlic, jalapeno, celery, potato and broccoli sprout juice. Sounds a bit much, but it was really good. I put it in a soup bowl and had "soup" for dinner. The garlicky, spiciness was welcome. I made too much though and after one cold bowl, I finished up the rest after heating in the microwave for a couple minutes. Hot it was a great tasting soup. I am not sure I should have had a hot juice, but I figured I got my nutrients in the fresh version and earlier in the day and a little heat wouldn't hurt much. Ah well, I am now full. I am having some tea and am hitting the sack. Night.

in the morning, I am glad I decided to get the Breville Juicer. It is an awful large purchase, so I am glad I had a big gift card left over from the wedding (that the bank started charging us for since we haven't used it) and I was able to get the juicer, a scrubber for veggies, and a few of those lovely 24oz COPCO reusable to-go cups with straws. I am able to clean the juicer (really rinse all the parts and scrub the screen) in about 5 minutes after I am done, and if I wash all the veggies the night before, it is as simple as shoving the lot into the machine and pouring the glass. Since I need to make one fruit and one veggie juice for the day, it means I need to start my day a little earlier than before, or as I learned yesterday, I will be late for work. Damn the snooze.

This morning, Granny Smith apple and raspberries (to finish both off). Yum. I tried putting the berries into cheesecloth and squeezing, and boy is that messy. I ended up massaging the ball of mushed berries over the cup and not getting as much juice as I did gore. My next idea is mashing the berries in a bowl real well, adding some juice, and then straining off the pulp and seeds. I could always run them through my mini cuisinart, but that would just be something else to get out, plug in and wash. At least the bowl and strainer is easy to pop into the dishwasher.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Found it hard at dinner to not jump my hubby for his reheated pizza. I made some pineapple, red pepper, apple, pea shoot juice. It was pretty good, maybe a bit too much pineapple. The acid is getting to me tonight.

Chamomile tea with a touch of honey as dessert...not as thrilling as one would hope, but it is nice to have a warm drink after cool and cold juice all day. I wonder if it is still a juice fast if I juice tomato, jalapeno, onion, and maybe potato and heat it into a soup....hmmmm.

Last night the hunger pains were minimal. I wanted to eat, to chew something, but a lot of this was my brain wanting food, not my body. My mind was dancing with thoughts of food and the devil inside me wanted me to rush into the fridge and eat that leftover half of a sandwich and feel its cold yumminess, and somewhat stale bread, and wilted lettuce, and soggy, somewhat slimy bread. (NOTE: This is today's rational description, developed because the angel in my head is working as a reality check to what that sandwich actually was, and not the gleaming vision of Italian deliciousness my mind conjured at that time.) It would have been easy, quick, simple, just gobble and done. But a lot kept me sane. My husband, for one, who ate said sandwich for dinner (out of my eyesight after I told him about my "hunger") and the baby bits of willpower I am in the process of nurturing.

See, I always thought I had no willpower. It was easier to do the things I wanted if I told myself I had no willpower. It doesn't matter that in fact, that was a big fat lie. Willpower manifests in your desire not to do something you "want" to do. Impulse control, if you will. I know that I must have willpower in aspects of my life because I have not been arrested for slapping strangers, have not maimed idiots by running them off the road when they do 30 in the fast lane or text-and-drive, and there has never been a wig in my home for my desire to pull all my hair out of my head in frustration. I have self-control.

Move that over to food, and well, not so much. Just days before this fast began, after I spent 2 weeks pairing down caffeine, meat, and junk food, and I went out with the family to a famous hot dog place and ordered 2 and ate 3 hot dogs, washed down with Birch beer and onion rings. I felt so sick with myself afterward. Noting like loading the nitrates when a fast is on the horizon. This must partially explain the mild headache I had the next day. At the time I thought those two weeks were for nothing, but now I realize I did some good because I do not have the migraine that usually comes after I try to give up coffee. I am actually feeling ok.

Back to the actual juice of the matter. Today it is apple-pear-raspberry. I love this. 3 Granny Smith, 3 Pink Lady, a pear that had seen better days and a handful of raspberries. (Note: don't put the berries in the juicer. I'd have been better off squeezing them in some cheesecloth.) I made lunch of carrot-orange pepper-ginger-sweet potato (the white kind) and it is alright. Very bright, like liquid sunshine. I imagine this is what the Easter Buddy drinks. I had wanted to do a fruit juice in the morning and veggie juices the rest of the day, but it looks like green juice is an acquired taste. I am ok with carrot, but it is too sweet.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

In the beginning of any new adventure, the author usually has a line that draws a reader in - "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." ; "All this happened, more or less" ; "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" ; "They shoot the white girl first." I don't have that quick witted beginning. All I have is this cup of green liquid in a clear plastic cup, and about 3 hours to go until bedtime.

This is the first day of the rest of my life. Today I turned 31; I also embarked on a journey that will take me 60 days with no solid food, only fresh juices and water. I do not take this lightly and I did not decide on a whim that I will be on this liquidarian fast for two months. I have been considering this for over a year and have been preparing for the past few weeks to get on with it. There is a story behind this, as there always is, but now is not the time. I promise it will unfold as I do over these next 59 days. Time and juice is all I seem to have, well that and hunger pains and a mild headache and a bit of bitchiness that is not going away.

On juicing today: I had a nice apple-strawberry juice for breakfast, and since it was my birthday, the girls at work took me out for lunch to a juice bar/ Rastafarian/Dominican vegan eatery in Nyack, NY called Nyack Main Essentials. It was wonderful. I had a Liver boost (red delicious apples and beets) and a shot of wheat grass juice. It was really quite good. I could feel the buzz of life (that sounds weird) from the wheat grass. I brought another juice back to work (all green = kale, parsley, celery) and it was, um, strong in the flavor of celery and green. I am not sure how to describe a green taste, but if green had a taste, that was it. I mixed the remainder with my dinner (radish, parsley, green apple, spinach, carrot) and the end result was a slimy muck that tasted quite as good as it sounds. I will try, from now on, to mix like colored items to get happy color results. I couldn't finish it. Brown juice is not appetizing - check.

Before bed I made myself a cup of herbal tea and a touch of honey, and it was a nice finish and removed the taste of, for lack of a word, *bleck, gag, Ew* from my mouth.

Stay tuned, if you will, for I am sure this is going to be quite the adventure story.

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